


The Enslavement of an Innocent

by tay5026



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Dubious Consent, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tay5026/pseuds/tay5026
Summary: Taken from home at the young age of 9 this is the short story of How a young girl grew up a slave and eventually became free. This is a brief summary of her Life.





	The Enslavement of an Innocent

The Enslavement of an Innocent

They came at night. We had been told for years to watch out for the devils that would come and take us. We better behave or we would never see our parents again. Stories used to frighten young children into behaving better for their parents. It wasn’t supposed to come true. My sister and I had a long day, playing and foraging in the forest, while my brother was learning the ins and outs of protecting the village. Our mother had sent us to bed and told us before we slept, that we had better stay in bed all night or we would be kidnapped. It didn’t save us. Around midnight, we heard a noise, a loud crash. We would later find out it was the sound of our father being slaughtered. We jumped from bed but already it was too late. Our weak arms were nothing against the strength of the three men who took down our father. Luckily my brother and sister were able to outrun their captors, but I was tied up and thrown over the shoulders of one of the men. I was only nine years old but I already knew that my life had changed forever.

The men took me to an encampment that already had a few others tied up in it. I recognized some faces but no one spoke, too in shock to weep. They tied us all together and forced us to march for days on end until finally we reached what I now know is the coast. At that time, I thought it was the edge of the world, I’d never seen anything so vast and endless. And on this edge, were swarms of the devil faced white man. The devil because the lack of color on the skin showed that no Sun God loved them. We were taken to these men and each of us touched in ways we have never been before. They stripped me of my clothes and looked me all over, me too scared to even fight. This is the first time I know shame, that I feel less. One man calls out something and another nods and I am no longer my own person. The Africans that took me from my innocent bed tell me that I am now to go on a journey and I will never see this land again. That the man who called out is now my owner and that I had fetched a fair price. He warned me to obey or I would be punished. This stood out to me because of reminded me of my mother’s warnings, but I had obeyed her and still I had been taken. I was put with another group of people none of whom I recognized. There were men and women but only three other children my age, all crying. The men were clapped in irons from head to toe but the women only had chains on their necks. We were not chained at all, only tied with rope to the end of the chains that clasped everyone together. We were then herded onto the wooden beast, that I now know as ship, and taken underdeck. 

Immediately a stench hit me in the face, a smell so fall that I wanted to expel my stomach contents immediately. It smelled of when I and my sister would find dead animals in the trees. They would be covered in filth and maggots and reek. The same smell permeated down here, little did I know that it would only get worse as the weeks progressed. We were unchained from each other and told to lie down in these tight slats, and then rechained. I, being smaller than most, had more room to move around. However, it was very tight and uncomfortable, the heat sweltering making it very hard to breathe. I immediately began to cry, all the tears that I didn’t shed on the journey to this ship were now coming out. I knew that as I was forced to lay down and be chained that I would never see my family or village again. I must have done something to make me the only one these devils caught, but the knowledge that my siblings had gotten away would bring me comfort for years to come. On the journey across the sea I would imagine that they are living their lives happily and me with them. This is the only thing that kept me sane as I was constantly drenched in diarrhea and vomit and tears. I learned not to open my mouth or talk though others learned languages to converse. When I was allowed on the deck, I kept to myself, being rinsed off and sitting in the corner imagining I was anywhere but where I was. I saw many deaths, some just for fun, the devils needing entertainment, but others because the other slaves couldn’t take it. Many jumped into the endless ocean, sensing that it was better to die free. I had my family in my mind, so I did not succumb. 

Finally, after what felt to me like forever we had arrived. We were unchained and rinsed off, the dead thrown to a pile on deck to be disposed of later. Those who couldn’t find the strength to walk were also thrown on this pile, not yet dead but not worth being taken with us. We were marched down to a wooden platform, which as surrounded by even more devils than I had ever knew existed. The only colored people I saw were in chains or at the sides of what I would come to know of as our masters. I was the only child left from the original three, so I was to go first to auction. A black man grabbed me and took me from my shipmates to the stage, where a white man looked all around my body and shouted out a number. Immediately hands were raised and other numbers shouted out. They were yelling over each other and it reminded me for a moment of the braying of hyenas. They looked wild and finally one man laughed and shouted a number and I was shoved towards him. He already had a cart of slaves behind him and I was the last. I was tossed into the cart and chained to the females there, the men were chained to the outside, forced to walk. One of the clothed slaves went through many African languages and finally I recognized one and replied. She explained to me that this man was to be known as Master Jones, and that he now owned me. I told her that no man could own me as I belong to my land. She replied that I have no land any longer and I was to now work for Mr. Jones.

We arrived at a land with a huge white house on it. Many black people were milling around working in the fields. Mr. Jones released us from the cart, and all of us newly purchased slaves were taken to a cabin and given clothes and explanations. I was told that my first job would be to learn the language of the masters. We were meant to forget any of our mother languages, and if found speaking them, we would be punished harshly. When I had a grasp on the foreign tongue, which didn’t take me long, I accredit this too my youth, I was then told I was bought to be a playmate for the masters’ children.

A leash was tied around my neck, and I was given one sack to wear, and taken to the main house. I was not yet allowed inside the house, only to be available to play when the children wanted too. I was tied up outside like a horse too wait. When it rained or they were otherwise occupied I was taken to the fields to pick our masters crops. I learned that this was a sugar plantation in Barbados and it was the year of their lord 1813. Their lord because I know of know God who would condone these barbarous acts and see them only as the devils’ minions. My life continued this way for ten years until the girl I was given to play with, grew up and married and I was made a part of her endowment.

I followed my mistress to the Americas where her husband was from. He was a tobacco plantation owner who resided in Maryland, who owned about a hundred slaves. My mistress felt that since she was married I was to be as well, and so when we arrived she picked the first man she saw and said I was to be his wife. I learned that the man’s name was Justin and I moved immediately into his quarters. We had our own little cabin in the slave quarters and were told to quickly fill it with children. During the day, I followed my mistress around and at night I made supper for when Justin would come in and then I would do my married duty. Justin was ten years older than me and had never known the African land. We bonded with my stories of the games my siblings and I would play as children, and I told him of the animals I seen. Two years past and finally we had children, I found it hard to feed them as most of my time was spent with my mistress who had a hard labor and so I was tasked with taking care of her children and feeding them my baby’s milk. I would spend all day with the white mans’ kids and come back to someone else raising mine. 

My mistress never recovered from childbirth and so I was given the job of watching the children fulltime when she died three years later. The master never recovered from his wife dying and the plantation began to go under. We had a year of bad crops and I lost my Justin, who I had become close to over the years. He was sold to another plantation with our children and I was forced to stay because I was the Nanny of the Masters children. The master began to sell off large swaths of land and slaves to make up for the money he was losing. I missed my children and Husband every day for years. I would never see them again.

I stayed on that plantation for thirty years, raising first my mistress’s children and then her children’s children, until finally I was released by my youngest charge. At this point I had already been a slave for forty-six years of my life. I had lived hard, not as hard as I could have but hard enough, but I was also given opportunities that other slaves did not have. While I was raising the children, I was able to learn to read and count and was more educated than they wanted slaves to be. This meant that when I was freed at fifty-five I took my knowledge and used it to help my people. I left the state of Maryland, fleeing the losing South who looked to blame slaves and free blacks for their loss, and I went to Philadelphia. I had heard that blacks could prosper their and overcome their stations. Using the little money my former master gave to me to get there, I took a job teaching little black girls and boys to read, as well as math’s. I told them they would need this knowledge if ever they were to get anywhere in life. I did this for twenty years, until my old bones couldn’t take anymore, and I retired. It was a long journey from my motherland to here and though it was filled with strife and the raping of my innocence, I felt that in some small way I could further my people by using the knowledge that was forced upon me.

 

 

The slave Mary Ann Jones, formally and re-known as her African name Ayanna, lived to be eighty-one years old. She died of natural causes in the year of our lord 1891. Though never a convert she taught and spoke in many churches and was a widely known proponent for black rights. She is rumored to have been speaking on her death bed to her siblings whom she was taken from in Africa. She died with a smile on her face.


End file.
